EXTENDING THE USES OF

THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY

By Fitri Johansyah

A Paper Presented at
54th TEFLIN
International Conference
5-7 December 2006

VENUE
Satya Wacana Christian University
Jl. Diponegoro 52-60
Salatiga – Central Java
INDONESIA

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INTRODUCTION

The language laboratory, since it was first used over fifty years ago, has been
growing enormously as one of the instrumental facilities needed for the success
of learning languages in schools. The modernization of the language lab over
the last decade has also increased its reliability and functionality to a higher
level. The lab, which was mainly and traditionally used for listening activity, can
now be utilized for more varied activities. The variety of activities that the lab
offers are very useful for teachers in delivering their lessons successfully and
for students in mastering the target language more quickly. Furthermore, by
using the technology in the lab teachers can make their lessons more
interesting and fun for students, creating a conducive learning atmosphere that
leads to successful language teaching and learning.

This presentation aims to show a variety of activities that teachers and students
can do in the lab to give the participants some ideas and insight into the
potential of the language lab in helping to achieve the objectives of learning
languages.

ADVANTAGES OF THE LANGUAGE LAB

There are many advantages when using the lab in the process of teaching and
learning languages. Some of them are briefly described below:

1. Developing listening skills

Listening is the main activity practiced in the lab and is an important
aspect in becoming linguistically fluent. The lab helps students develop
good listening skills. Students can hear the correct language utterances
through their headsets, instead of mimicking other students who may be
pronouncing incorrectly.

2. Variety of native speaker models

The lab provides students with a variety of model voices from native
speakers, rather than just the voice of their teacher. Students can also
practice saying the correct utterances after the models, and can even
record them to assess their progress.

3. Speaking, as well as listening

Using Pair/Group Discussion and Phone Conversation activities,
students can practice their speaking skills in conversation. The random
selection of student partners makes this activity even more interesting for
students as they will be curious as to who their partners will be.

4. Acoustic advantage
The lab gives all students, regardless where they sit in the room, equal
opportunity to hear and to be heard by the teacher. It also reduces

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 misunderstandings due to the clear sound transmission to students via
their individual headsets.

5. Private and individual

The headset and microphone unit provides students with a psychological
privacy that promotes their speaking ability. It reduces the inhibitions
usually felt in normal classroom situations and therefore encourages the
shy students to speak up. The teacher can talk to individual student in
privacy without disturbing the rest of the class. Students may also work
through the lesson materials at a level set by themselves for their own
comfort, hereby allowing them to develop at their own pace.

6. Increasing attention
As students listen to the lesson materials individually, their attention is
focused on the program material being studied, ultimately increasing
their attention span.

7. Effective and efficient

The teacher can monitor and talk to individual students much more
efficiently. Usually in a regular classroom all other students stop
speaking when the teacher talks to an individual student. This will not
happen in the lab. The technology enables the teacher to interact with
many more students since he/she merely presses a mouse key or
buttons, making the most efficient use of time, improving the
teacher/student time ratio in a given lesson.

8. Excitement and fun

The lab provides variety from regular classroom situations and therefore
excites students when using it. The students’ attention is heightened and
the boredom of repetitive learning is lifted. The teacher’s role is changed
and the students are more active for longer periods of time. The teacher
can even make quizzes for fun!

LESSON ACTIVITIES IN THE LANGUAGE LAB

There are plenty activities that can be done in the lab. Some activities are best
done in the lab, for it has the necessary media to facilitate them in achieving the
maximum effect and goal. These activities are described below:

1. Listening
Listening is the most common activity done in the lab. In fact, early
language labs were built to facilitate and enhance this activity. Advanced
technology in the lab has enabled teachers and students to do this
activity beyond methods usually done in regular classrooms with
conventional tape players. The technology offers some features which
help teachers and students to do listening activities more effectively and
efficiently. These features are explained below:

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a. Jigsaw listening
A class can be divided into groups listening to different lesson
materials from variety of different sources at the same time. It is
very effective as students listen only to the material addressed to
them, without interfering with other groups, thus heightening their
concentration on the given material. It is highly efficient for the
students do these activities simultaneously, saving time to do
other activities to follow up the listening.

b. Bookmarking
This feature helps students to set marks on the listening passages
so that they can refer back to the desired spot in no time at all. It is
extremely useful for long listening passages. Students will not
have to rewind the track to get to the right point, predicting where
it might be and luckily get to it in the first effort. Bookmark can also
help students to answer a set of pre-listening questions about the
passage by setting the marks to the tentative answers for the
questions on the track.

c. Free listening
The teacher can free up students’ panels to give students freedom
to study the lesson materials at their own pace for their own
comfort. This is very useful for students in practicing their listening
skills and in comprehending the listening passages better.

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2. Model Imitation
Model Imitation activity is an efficient way to practice pronunciation and
rhythm of a foreign language. This feature allows students to listen to the
model and repeat after. Students can be freed to practice individually and
to repeat the activity as many times they need to. The technology also
enables students to record the models and their own utterances for
independent study and to evaluate their progress.

3. Recorded Response
Technically similar to Model Imitation, Recorded Response provides
students opportunities to practice both listening and speaking. In this
activity, students listen to a set of recorded spoken questions and, within
the given time allocation, answer each of the questions afterwards.
Students can take home the recorded questions and answers to study
them independently. Teachers may use this for oral tests in which they
do not have to interview many students with the same set of questions.
Instead, teachers would just need to record their spoken questions and
have all students in the lab answer them, and assess them later. The
advanced recording system that the lab has enables teachers to digitally
record the students’ answers and save them onto CD or Flash Disc to
take home, rather than carrying around cassettes, tape player and
papers, thus, saving time and energy.

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4. Pair or Group Discussion
Pair or Group Discussion activity enhances students’ communicative
abilities, which include both listening and speaking skills, since they have
to make themselves comprehensible to their discussion partners. In the
discussion, the students can repeat the message to check for
understanding, and express themselves by using their own words
instead of fixed structures. The discussion itself can be recorded for
students to listen back to what they have said and evaluate their
strengths and weaknesses in the oral exchange. The teacher can choose
a method of pairing or grouping from fixed to random pairing or grouping.
The teacher can even pair or group the students manually as he/she
wants, as well as determining the size of the groups.

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5. Phone Conversation
As the name suggests, Phone Conversation allows students to dial any
other student’s audio panel number, considering the person they want to
talk to is not engaged with another student, to have a conversation.
Teachers can use this feature to drill, and for students to practice, certain
language structures. This is a very motivating activity for students
because they are free to choose who they want to talk to without too
much worry of other students who might hear what they say. This
reduces the inhibitions students usually feel in normal classroom
situations and encourages the shy students to speak up.

6. Reading Practice
A reading activity can also be done in the lab. Reading aloud is a useful
way of practicing intonation, rhythm and pronunciation. This exercise is
ideal for students to practice their reading skill. The students read a text
onto the student track which is recorded and listen back to their reading.
Students can do this individually at their own pace to evaluate their
reading skill and to improve the output.

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7. Quiz
The quiz is a quick and easy way to see how well students answer the
questions the teacher asks. Unlike other quizzes done in normal
classroom situations which are often stressful for students, the quiz in the
language lab can be very fun. The students use buttons to input answers
to the given questions. The teacher just selects the answer type (true or
false, or multiple choice) plays or reads out a question, and starts the
answering time. Students’ answers appear on the teacher’s screen and
the teacher can immediately let the students know whether they
answered correctly or not. All students’ answers are also recorded in a
written form so that the teacher can announce the best student in the
quiz, or for the students to know how many correct or wrong answers
they made.

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CLOSING

The language laboratory has undoubtedly offered many things for teachers and
students to help achieve the goals of teaching and learning languages. Yet, the
lab itself cannot function to its maximum effect if teachers and students do not
explore and use the advanced technology in it. No matter how advanced and
sophisticated the lab is, it is the teachers and the students who can make the
most of its potential for the success of teaching and learning languages.